Felix Atagong's Unfinished Projec

The Rough Guide To Pink Floyd

20061015

The Rough Guide To Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd fans have been diminished to a bunch of pathetic wankers if
you ask me. I know, I am one of them. We discuss the fact if Syd Barrett
was having an Earl Grey or an Orange Pekoe tea on Sunday morning the
18th of November of the year 1967 and we are proud of that.

You slowly become a Pink Floyd wanker (PFW for short) when one realizes
that the amount of Pink Floyd tribute CDs starts to become bigger than
the volume of official Pink Floyd albums. Magazines with Pink Floyd on
the cover make a pile higher than the house you are living in and you
have just bought The Rough Guide To Pink Floyd only because you
want to scrutinize it for possible errors.

Being a grumpy wanker de luxe I am fairly disappointed in Toby
Manning's The Rough Guide To Pink Floyd, because it actually is a
very fine book. I like it, damn! I like the air of blasphemous criticism
it breathes throughout the text, the fine humour, the stabs at all the
(past) members of the band. This is by no way a hagiography. Aren't
there any errors, "Show me the errors!", I hear you scream. Well
probably they are in there, but I have already forgotten them, so much
fun I had by reading The Story section of book.

'Cause the book is divided in 3 segments: The Story, The Music and
Floydology. The Story takes about half of the volume and is a very good
read. The Music tries to delve inside the productive qualities of the
Floyd members and this is where some favouritism creeps in. Finally.

Over the years we have had several Which One Is Pink wars. There are
still people around who think that the post-Barrett-era band does not
have the rights to the name Pink Floyd. Most of those bozos would never
have heard of Syd Barrett anyway without the tributes that have been
buried inside Dark Side of The Moon, Wish You Were Here or The
Wall, so their claims are not to be taken too seriously.

Of more importance are the Waters versus Gilmour feuds. Toby Manning has
a fine point when he writes that The Final Cut is a Roger Waters
solo record disguised as a Floyd release, while The Pros And Cons Of
Hitchhiking is in fact a 'Pink Floyd album in all but personnel'. He
certainly has the right to his opinion that post-1986 Diet Floyd was a
fine forgery of the classic original. However, I do not understand that
the author selects only one representative track from the
post-Waters-period: Richard Wright's lament Wearing The Inside Out.
That track is, by definition, not representative for the post-Waters
Floyd at all and if the slightly horrible The Post-War Dream, Your
Possible Pasts and Not Now John made it into his Pink Floyd
Top 50, I fail to see why One Slip, Sorrow, What Do You
Want From Me or High Hopes have not been included as well.

But even if Toby Manning is an erring admirer of the opposite camp he
has probably written the best book about the Floyd in ages. It can stand
without shame next to Nicholas Schaffner's Saucerful Of Secrets
(1991, already) and Nick Mason's Inside Out memories (2004).

Wanking one last time: the 18th November of the year 1967 wasn't a
Sunday after all!